Culture: Automaton
Credit Card Monkey   (+21, -6)  [vote for, against]
Save! Save! Save!

Medium-sized alloyed statuette of chalk-black monkey. Swipe credit card through slot at monkey's base whenever so desired; and monkey will rotate and render fine orchestral music (whilst debiting your card) to inform you of your saving.

Few outlets support monkey-relieving - so it is hard to give up your golden savings, as it should be.

Soon monkey will allow enough to buy stereo.

Maybe only in bookstores. I don't know.
-- eehen, Jul 09 2000

This is cool. I mean... credit card scanner things now just lack that certain, je ne sais pas.... A black african voodoo monkey would be much cooler. You should do this. Or I should. Actually, I should do this. You should get a job at McDonalds while I get rich. I don't know about the spinning and music though. I'm thinking.... His eyes light up, and he laughs a really deep, crazy laugh. "Bwa ha ha ha ha"
-- HotBlackDesoto, Jul 14 2000


It seems very odd that this should be so popular while some of eehen's other suggestions were quickly fishboned (though not by me; I am sincerely a great admirer of his two-week Halfbakery career). Do people just like monkeys? This must be the solution.
-- Monkfish, Nov 23 2000


Beats me, I didn't vote either way on this one (although I too enjoyed Eehen's meanderings here and on his website). Would any of the credit card monkey's supporters care to share their pleasure with us?
-- Lemon, Nov 23 2000


I can't speak for the other voters, but unlike most of eehens other stuff, this one touched a nerve with me. It reminded me of the displays in the shop window of a toy store in Bochum that would start to move when I pressed my then very small hand against a specially marked area in the window; the mechanical theatre down in the basement of Covent Garden, London; half-mechanical arcades in an empty sea resort. I like those images and memories.

I also think that all we get out of life is the spectacle of it; a rotating, tune-playing monkey to the swipe of my credit card is a sharp and fitting summary.
-- jutta, Nov 23 2000


I like the balance of one immediate indulgence against another.

I don't particularly care for a *monkey*, myself, but I'm sure the particular statues would get replaced and Fimo'd and bestickered and generally modified to meet local tastes and obsessions.
-- hello_c, Nov 27 2000


[unabubba] Funny!...not really.
what about personalized ones? like a scissors at a barbershop (these could also be used to automatically cut up bad credit cards, like in the movies)
-- igirl, Mar 31 2003


I am giving this long-lost idea a bun for the simple reason that the syntax of the sentences is absolutely classic.
-- shapu, Mar 14 2009


A monkey's paw might be more fitting.
-- Spacecoyote, Mar 14 2009



random, halfbakery